Broken Down
by JM0613
Summary: Something happened in high school that he will never forget. It changed his outlook on life, he was scarred for life; he wasn't the cocky jock that played girls and bullied people anymore, he became more smart and actually sincere. He wants nothing more than to forget his mistakes, but they continue to haunt him, so he decides to accept them. AU.
1. The Incident

**This is most likely going to be a short story.**

**Chapter 1**  
_Jace's POV_

"I'm surprised you even care, I mean there's nothing you can do about it now." Aline said, trying to sound careless but with a tone of weariness behind that betrayed her words.  
"Yeah, well, I do. It's our fault." I replied over the phone. "She would be alive if it wasn't for us." All I felt was regret. Why did I have to be such a jerk? Why didn't I stop it? It was never a good idea to begin with!  
"But we can't bring her back and... We shouldn't dwell on it any longer. I mean what else can we do?"  
"What do you mean 'what else can we do?', we killed her! I went to the funeral. I saw her parents cry their eyes out. It's all I can think about, we killed their child." I voice shook at the end.  
"Jace, we went to school with her, that's it. We have to get passed this. It was just an accident!" Aline pleaded wanting nothing more than for me to drop it and act as though nothing happened. If I had moved on then she could too.  
"Yeah, sure whatever. Look, I gotta go. I'll talk to you tomorrow." I said dismissively, hanging up the phone after her muttered goodbye.  
It had been three days since the trial ended. Me, Aline, Izzy, and Alec had all been charged and the only reason we won't go to jail is because we're still in high school. Alec was eighteen and the rest of us are seventeen. Were midway through junior year and have our whole futures ahead of us. The court case was considered manslaughter and we all got marks on our record but no real punishments are coming to us. I kind of wish there was so that I wouldn't feel as guilty.

I was laying down on my bed just looking up at the ceiling for a while as I recalled the nightmarish memories of her death. All it was was a simple prank. We were at a party and we thought it was a great idea at a time, that it would be hilarious. Of course now, after we had our laughs,-except there were no laughs to begin with- I saw how stupid and dangerous the situation was. It was around five months ago and it was a senior party that few juniors were invited to just to add numbers. Idris is a small seaside town.

Kaelie was a nice girl, she was outgoing and always wore a dress with curled blonde hair. However she did have a record of dating a few too many guys, but she wasn't a terrible person. She was a senior and she had invited me and Alec to the party, since we were in the football, basketball, and baseball teams. The fact that I was a juniors didn't exactly matter to our popularity status, we were still the cool kids. Aline, being my on-again-off-again girlfriend, obviously came and Izzy was attractive, she was always invited to the parties.  
We were meat-heads that got just passing grades and bullied people. We thought it would be funny to play a prank and Kaelie was on board. We set it up and picked a victim. We supposedly 'though it out' but really if we had we wouldn't have done it. We picked a junior that we could embarrass and wouldn't have to worry about returning the joke, so we picked Clary. We didn't know her that well but we knew she was a honor roll student who had a thing for art. She was invited to the parties because she was dating a senior, Sebastian. He was a football and basketball player so I knew him and he was a pretty nice guy; I knew they had been dating for like a year now and we have pranked and joked about her once or twice before but that's the most I knew.  
Anyways the prank went as planned, however she tried to get away and off the deck of some seniors house, she fell off. There was about a 50 foot fall into complete darkness and then a roll down a steep rocky hill and to the small private docks of the ocean. Completely unsafe right? It was some rich guys cliff side house, the railing was high enough and completely safe but she still fell over.  
Around ten people witnessed and they went into hysterics while the police were called. A ton of her blood had been all over the hill and her body fell over the dock. The next day they took her body out and apparently it was bad. Face gashed and broken bones. Her reddish hair the only thing to stand for it.

As you can imagine, it was a closed casket.

It only got worse after that. Newspaper articles, shrines, school counselors, everybody was horrified, and then the funeral and the court case.  
I would never pull a prank ever again. Nor would anybody else who went to Idris High School. 


	2. The New Plan

**Chapter 2 **

Jace's POV

The bell rang as I sat at my desk waiting for everybody else to seat themselves as well. I wasn't talking to my friends or anything just waiting for class to start. Things hadn't exactly been so easy going between us. We still talked but it wasn't as easy anymore. Class went on and all I did was pay attention and did my assignment. I talked to Alec next to me every now and then but we didn't talk about anybody or plan any pranks like we used to. We talked about our lives and continued on in our non-jock talk. He did try to crack a few jokes but obviously didn't get the expected reaction of laughter. Alec just wasn't that kind of guy though, he was more shy.

I looked down at the assignment on my desk. It was Algebra 2. I didn't understand much of it but I learned a neat trick that if you opened the book, you could learn what the hell what was going on!

Over the past three months my grades took a spike. I learned it was easier to just focus on school work. I had A's and B's now.

When class was over I went to my next class, I was deep in thought walking next to Alec when someone bumped into me. My shoulder jerked and I looked back at them, It was Jonathan, Clary's brother. He looked at me with anger and disgust written all over his face. That's how he has been acting ever since the accident. For a week he missed school before he came back without a look of sadness anywhere to be found. He was just angry.

At lunch our table actually returned to some of its joking and laughter, it had been after all six months. Aline was all close to me looking at me with adoring eyes, being all romantic and seductive. Well, It was now or never.

"Hey Aline, you finished?" I asked her to see if she wanted to go.

"Yeah, did you want to go?"

"Yeah. let's go walk around." I said getting up from my seat. I didn't let anything show on my face but instead looked as if nothing was wrong. She had a hopeful look on her face, thinking that I decided to let our conversation on the phone last night go.

When we walked out of the loudness of the cafeteria, she almost instantly started talking about herself and what's been going on. I let her talk for a while but when lunch was almost over I stopped her.

"And me and Helen went to the mall this weekend-"

"Hey, Aline, let's stop here for a second." I said holding her shoulders to stop from moving. we were outside the school where people frequented after lunch. We were some distance away and out of hearing range. She looked up at me curiously and even hopefully as I touched her.

"Yes, Jace?"

"Listen, I care for you Aline. I really like you, and your an amazing person, you know that right?" I said to her in a gentle tone. She seemed shocked at how much of a romantic I sounded. Normally I was always joking and not serious and even pushed her away, not showing my emotions to her.

"Um...yeah." She said with understandable doubt. It's not like I ever said it out loud.

"Good, because I want you to know that. I'm kind of a jackass who normally doesn't say shit like this but I think it's about time I got over myself." She smiled at that, but it wouldn't stay for long.

"With this whole mess that went down, that's at least something I realized. I think it's time to face reality and that we won't be in high school forever and our social lives aren't going to be the thing that counts. I want to give you an amazing high school experience, but I don't think I can at this point. I really just want to focus on school and sports."

"Wait, are you breaking up with me?" she said with anger and surprise.

"Aline, calm down, I am. If you just think about it we aren't really that compatible. I have a shitty personality and I don't treat you right. I don't have anything going on for me besides my looks and I just need to work on myself.

"Oh my god, are you serious? work on yourself? what is this, another one of your things where you run off and whore around with another girl?" She said, angry now.

"Aline, this isn't that. don't you see? This is exactly what I'm talking about. I'm a dipshit and I'm trying to stop doing that and treating girls like crap."

"But what if I don't agree with you? what if I think we are compatible?"

"...If that's how you really feel, then maybe we can try again, in the future. If that's _truly _what you want. I mean you don't really know that much about me and you know that. You know an idea of me. I just want you to think about it for a while. I don't want you to be with me for my looks or my status, I want you to be with me for who I am."

She looked at me like I was crazy, but her anger died down.

"Are you having a meltdown?" I laughed at that.

"No, I am completely serious. If you want to go out in the future, come back to me in a year. And don't worry, I will still take you to Prom if you need me too." I said backing up from her. She looked utterly confused but as i got a distance away from her and turned to walk straight, I did see the hint of a smile on her face.

I was happy she was going to take my words serious. I meant every word of them. I breathed a sigh of relief. What a chip off my shoulder that was. I went back inside to go to my locker and go to class.

Thinking the entire time of my plan. There was Step 2 of it, complete. I was breaking down myself so that I can find out who I truly was and who I wanted to be.

* * *

**Tell me what you think! I am excited for this story now that I got an idea of where I want it to go. **

**And in case your wondering, Step 1 was his grades. **


	3. Forgiveness

**Chapter 3**

Jace's POV

_Step 3: Finding Forgiveness_

At the beginning of school, that day I continued as I normally. I felt okay. It was good not to have to explain myself to Aline and constantly check in with her and my friends. Over the week she had accepted the break-up. A lot better than the other breakups we have had, where I left her out of nowhere because there was a hotter girl around. I don't know why either, Aline has a certain beauty to her that's not as fake. She actually seemed happy for me in a way.

Alec and I's conversation continued to be more real. I took interest in his life after high school since he was a senior. He was applying to major state colleges near New York, along with a ton of scholarships. New York wasn't that far from Idris, maybe only a couple hours.

He was hoping to get into an Ivy league school like Columbia, Princeton or even Yale. Those were his top choices.

I was surprised I had never asked about this before. He was my brother and I didn't even know where he was going.

On the way to my locker in the morning, I spotted Jonathan and thought it the perfect opportunity to talk to him.

"Hey, Jonathan." I called out as I walked over to him. He was talking to some of his friends, the seniors from the basketball team. When I seen him he sighed and palpably rolled his eyes at me. The team greeted me before departing leaving me and Jonathan to talk.

"What do you want?" He said crossing his arms.

"I just wanted to talk."

"About what?"

"Look, I know you have been angry for a long time now, and I just wanted to tell you that I am sorry. About what happened." he looked at me caught off guard, uncrossing his arms.

"You're sorry?" he asked confused.

"Yeah, what happened was a shitty thing and I wanted you to know, that I regret it. I regret everything. Something like that should never happen to anyone. It was a horrible accident, and I apologize, for my part in it."

" Um...Okay….well, thanks. I guess." At this point he seemed shell shocked. At least he didn't seem angry. I could tell he wasn't gonna let it go that easy though. I mean it was his sister.

I went through the day normally after that. In my AP Lit class I looked up to see Jonathan giving me an odd look but other than that i had no other engagement from him.

During fourth, the only thing on my mind was Clary. The quiet redhead from my grade that I had never talked too. I remember her funeral and all the people that showed up. They had had a picture of her up where she looked lively and smiled brightly. She had been beautiful in that picture and looking at it brought memories of her to my mind.

The few things I remembered of her were in my art class Freshman year and how talented she was. I remembered her answering almost all the questions our history teacher asked about the renaissance. I remembered her hanging out with that same kid since elementary. The one with the glasses.

When the bell rang for lunch I walked slowly to my locker before making my way into the lunch room. I searched the room for this boy with the glasses. The lunchroom was still pretty empty and the majority of the people in the room stood in line getting their lunch.

I spotted him though. He was sitting at a table with a bunch of other guys that I would have considered the dorks before everything happened. All his friends talked animatedly but he was sitting at the edge of the group just listening. He seemed more Isolated and actually sat a bit farther off with a look of sadness. Besides the other guys that sat at one end of the table there was no one else at the long rectangular table. That was him alright.

After getting my lunch, on impulse I went over and sat next to him. At the table I normally sit at with my group was empty, and nobody was there yet.

"Hey," I said looking at him.

He turned towards me with a face of shock and discomfort. "Um… Hey?"

"I'm Jace." I said since I didn't know his name.

"Yeah, I know who you are. Simon." He beside Jonathan didn't seem angry, rather just unfriendly.

"Well, Simon. I saw you over here and I thought I would come over and see how you are."

"See how I am?" He looked at me like I was crazy, which I was starting to get used to now. I didn't like that people looked at me like that when I was changing, but I figured the change was worth it. "Why in the hell would you do that?"

I sighed, "Well, I remembered you were Clary's friend and I…" I paused trying to word this without sounding like I was pitying him. "I wanted to apologize to you for how things turned out. I'm sorry."

"You're apologizing to me?" he said surprised. he looked at me as if he were seeing me for the first time. "Why?"

"Well she was your friend and…" I couldn't really come up with a good explanation, "Because I am." He looked at me untrustworthy. As if I were playing some prank on him. I shuddered at the thought. I can't believe I was okay with people looking at me like that, as if everything I did was a joke. Technically it was but still.

"Well, thanks." He said turning back to his lunch, expecting me to leave. I sat there for a moment, considering just leaving. I looked up over at my table and seen Izzy and Aline pointedly looking at me in complete confusion. Alec and Magnus were in line for food and hadn't noticed yet.

"Hey, do you want to join us?" I asked again on impulse. He was shocked even more this time. He didn't respond for a good two minutes before he straight up asked.

"Is this a prank?"

"No, I'm completely serious." Simon looked up to the other guys who had not even noticed my presence and were animatedly talking about some sci-fi movie.

"Yeah, sure, I guess." He said, picking his plate up and following me. I walked back over to the table, leaving Simon a spot to sit next to me and Izzy. If he seemed uncomfortable before.

When Alec and Magnus joined us they gave him questioning looks but didn't question it. They instead gave Izzy questioning looks in which she pointed her head to me before continuing her conversation with Aline. They looked to me and simply shrugged before starting a conversation up with Simon.

Simon was uncomfortable the entire time but when I invited him over again the next day, I think he knew I was serious. He slowly became less uncomfortable with time. The group talked to him too going along with me, and inviting him in and being friendly and joking. Before, they never would have done something like this, but they were of course changing too. And that's how Simon became apart of our group.

Alec understood me, and my reasoning and didn't question further into it, everyone else however went along and thought I was just going through a mental breakdown. If they only knew.


End file.
